false dichotomy
by waterlit
Summary: Allen and Kanda know this: with love comes grief. Lavi, their good friend, struggles to pass this message on. Includes Kanda/femAllen.


Title: false dichotomy

Disclaimer: If you must – I don't own DGM.

Characters: Lavi, Lenalee and Kanda/fem!Allen

Summary: Allen and Kanda know this: with love comes grief. Lavi, their good friend, struggles to pass this message on.

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><p><strong>[false dichotomy]<strong>

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><p>"If you seek catharsis," Komui says, "then watch this."<p>

He slides a shiny disc across the table. Lavi glances at the disc.

"Well?" Komui asks. "Not to your taste, Lavi?"

"It –" Lavi picks the disc up, twirling it around his index finger. "A DVD, huh? Or blue-ray?"

"Could be either," Komui says, shrugging. He grimaces and looks at his empty coffee mug. 'I'm not too sure, actually. Reever picked it up for me. He said it'd be good for you. Since Johnny and Tapp both agreed, I decided that it must be helpful."

"Does Lenalee –"

"– watch it with her, Lavi. She hasn't been the same since… well, you know. Since that happened."

"I know, Komui." _I__know__too__well.__And__everything,__everything__… __everything__'__s__my__fault._

"You can go now," Komui says. "I wish you the best. Remember to watch the tape."

:::

'I'm gonna take you guys somewhere special today!" Lavi said, beaming. "Someplace you won't expect."

"Lavi…"

"Why do you sound so tired, Allen-chan?" Lavi asked, fingering his camera. "Aren't you excited? Especially since you're gonna be taking photos with Yu?"

"Shut the hell up, idiot," Kanda said, his eyes closed and head leaning back. "You're damned noisy."

"So Kanda is awake," Lavi said. "So, would you like me to comfort Allen for you, because obviously she's less important to you than rest is."

"The hell you're saying?" Kanda cracked one eye open.

"Just drive, Lavi," Allen said. She tucked her arms around her waist, looking out the left window of the car.

"You heard her," Kanda said, his voice an almost-growl.

"Can't I ever tease you guys without being treated like an annoying idiot?" Lavi asked, his smile dropping off his face as he stepped on the accelerator.

"You are an annoying idiot, true story."

"Yu! Why are you always so mean to me?"

"Look at the road please, Lavi," Allen said. "I don't really want to die yet."

"I'm serious, guys," Lavi said, still not giving the road his fullest attention. "Why not just announce your relationship to the world?"

Allen and Kanda both shot Lavi a blank look.

"Are you mad?" Kanda finally asked. "Has something gotten to your head? You sure as shit know what will happen if we announce this to the whole damned world."

"Uhh," Lavi said, "it can't be that bad yeah? Maybe the paparazzi will stalk you and all that but nah, can't be that bad."

"Don't kid yourself," Kanda scoffed. "Remember that time they trailed you when you so much as let slip that you might be seeing that Brazilian actress?"

Lavi's brows furrowed in recollection. "Ahh, yes, that. But it probably won't happen again…"

"Are you really that stupid?" Kanda asked. "No way I'm letting them into our privacy."

"Awww, you really do care a lot for Allen-chan!"

"Just drop it, Lavi," Allen said. "I want to be able to enjoy the scenery, please."

"Fine, I'll shut up."

"Good riddance," Kanda said.

Lavi pouted.

:::

"Professor?" One of the boys in the front row raises his hand. "What happened to the models?"

"Did they get married, Professor Bookman?" a girl in the back row asks.

Lavi looks up at the faces before him, all pale, eager, full of life, and thinks of those who came before. His voice is subdued when he speaks. "No, they didn't. They were trapped, and they had to die to be together."

"That sounds dramatic," a student says, "a bit like Romeo and Juliet."

"Yes, it was a tragicomedy," Lavi agrees, discreetly wiping away a tear. "But let us now look at the way the photo symbolises love. We have to look at the way the light falls…"

Lavi dismisses the class five minutes earlier today. It's the same every year now.

:::

"Guys, we're here," Lavi said, clambering out of the car. 'Get your lazy asses out!"

"Hmmm?" Allen said, drowsily rousing herself and disentangling herself from Kanda's arms.

"You two are really cute!" Lavi said. "I should have gotten a photo of you sleeping together."

"Usagi," Kanda warned.

"But unfortunately, I didn't," Lavi clarified hastily. "Now let's get down to business!"

He carried his photography equipment over to where he wanted to set them up, and the models followed close behind him.

"A railway track," Allen said. "And it looks really unique, doesn't it, Kanda?"

"Che."

"Yes, it's lovely!" Lavi grinned. "Thought it'd be the perfect place to get some perfect shots of you perfect people!"

"Do you really have to be this happy all the time?" Kanda growled.

"Yu, dear, it's really not my fault that you're unable to achieve your happily-ever-after with Allen. Blame your own sweet personality my dear!"

"No fighting, boys," Allen said, smiling slightly. "The lighting here is really pretty."

"Just wait for me to set up, guys."

Allen nodded and pulled Kanda to sit with her along the tracks.

"Look at the sky, Kanda. The clouds are so elegant and the colours… they just fall straight out of the sky."

Kanda made a small sound, but didn't bother to gripe.

"If only we could sit here forever and be happy till the end of our days."

"I'm sure you guys can achieve happiness even in the city," Lavi offered.

"I'm not sure we can," Allen said. "It doesn't seem very possible."

"Eh?"

"We quarrel so very often, don't we, Kanda?" Allen nudged her boyfriend before proceeding to lean on his arm. "Although it's quite fun, the quarrelling. But it will be very difficult for us to live in the public eye."

"If you can't be together and be happy," Lavi said in jest, "then go the tragic way and die together like Romeo and Juliet."

"That's stupid," Allen said. She turned her face away.

"Mmm," Kanda said.

:::

In the teachers' lounge, Lenalee sits waiting.

"I see you brought that photo to show your students again," she says, looking at the folder in Lavi's hands.

"It's their anniversary," Lavi says, placing the folder gently beside him on the black couch. "And I still can't forgive myself. The best way to honour them – the best way is to preserve memories of their love, captured in still shots, and then teach the young how not to follow this disastrous path."

"Lavi…"

"Don't mind me," Lavi says. "Happens every year. The students always ask, 'professor, what happened to them?' Sometimes I think I can't take it anymore."

"Then why bother?"

"I can't forget them," Lavi says, looking at his clenched knuckles. "I ruined them."

"Lavi, this is just grief speaking. We none of us can forget them, but we can't keep blaming ourselves. They would have done it anyway."

"I planted the idea in their minds, when I brought them to the railway track to shoot this." Lavi's breath is slightly raspy.

"It's my fault," Lavi repeats, and then the world explodes in sepia, memories of days long gone flooding his mind.

:::

"Lavi!"

"Lenalee?" Lavi fiddled with some dials on his camera, loathe to look away from the screen.

"Lavi!"

"Okay, give me a moment, yeah." With a final twist of a knob, Lavi turned away from the sunset. The dying embers of the sun spilled onto the balcony of his hotel room, a glorious cacophony of red and purple.

"They're dead, Lavi." Lenalee gripped Lavi's right arm, her knuckles turning white from the pressure she was applying.

"Who?" Lavi asked, fear settling heavily in his abdomen.

Lenalee began to sob, and in that instant, Lavi knew.

"No," he said, "no. That's not possible. They were… they were so happy…."

"Nii-san just called with the news," Lenalee said, fierce sobs escaping from her. She released Lavi's arm.

"This can't be true," Lavi said, tripping over his own feet to get to the telephone. When he looked down, his feet were awash in the red of the sun, like a blood bath spreading across the white of the tiles.

:::

Lavi slides the disc into the machine.

"What's this?" Lenalee asks, sipping gently at her tea.

"Komui gave it to me," Lavi says, fiddling with the remote. "He also told us to watch it together. He said something about catharsis."

"Hmm," Lenalee says. "Tell me, Lavi, why do you still feel guilt?"

"Because – because – I – it was me –"

"It's fine. Let's just play this."

:::

At the joint funeral, Lavi approached Cross Marian and Tiedoll, both of whom were standing by the platform. Tiedoll's face was a shade of ashen grey, and his eyes were red with tears shed and unshed. Sorrow hung heavy on him, present in the creases of his black shirt and in the wrinkles on his skin. Cross, too, appeared listless, though he had managed to procure a mug of beer to accompany him on the solemn occasion.

"I'm sorry," Lavi said, looking at the two men, guilt flashing across his face. To his surprise, neither man appeared angry.

"You poor boy," Tiedoll said, taking Lavi's hands into his own weathered ones. "How have things been for you?"

Lavi looked down at Tiedoll's hands; he could see the blue-green veins running along the length of the arm, like rivers of life coursing through land. "I'm sorry," he began again. "It was all my fault."

"Surely you are not such a fool as think you played a hand in their deaths," Cross snorted from the side. Lavi watched with distaste as the man flippantly placed a cigarette between his lips.

"I joked with them, Cross," Lavi said. "I told them they could be like Romeo and Juliet if they wanted to find their own happily-ever-after."

"You think you had so much influence over them?" Cross asked, raising a red eyebrow. "Is that what you really think, Lavi Bookman?"

"Yes," Lavi said, sickened by the apparent lack of concern in Cross's manner.

"You're wrong, then, boy." Cross took a deep whiff of smoke. "You're very wrong. My idiot apprentice and her boyfriend would never have listened to such an absurd suggestion if they hadn't truly believed in the truth of it themselves."

"I planted the idea in their minds," Lavi insisted.

"Don't be such a stubborn mule," Cross said.

"It's alright, Lavi," Tiedoll said gently, "just let the past go. It's what they would have wanted."

That night, Lavi drank himself unconscious. He never spoke of Allen and Kanda again, until in later years he got the idea of using them as material for his classes.

:::

"It's Inception," Lenalee said, glancing at Lavi. "You've watched it before?"

"No," he said, turning the remote control over in his palms. "I haven't."

"Why –"

"Didn't feel like it. Struck to close to home."

"Okay," Lenalee said. 'Let's watch it then."

She dimmed the lights, played the movie.

:::

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.

**:::**

"What Cobbs said… makes sense, don't you think?"

"Hmm?" Lenalee says, stirring her tea, eyes vacant. "Yes, yes."

"I feel like Cobbs at times," Lavi says, "a feeling of guilt for perpetuating the tragedy."

"That's true," Lenalee says. "Tea?"

"No thanks. Do you have some beer, though?"

"Here."

"Thanks. But maybe, Lenalee, maybe… I was wondering… what if it wasn't my fault? What if they thought of it themselves, that they would never get peace together so long as they lived on earth?"

"I don't know, Lavi, I don't know."

:::

_One year later:_

Professor?" One of the boys in the front row raises his hand. "What happened to the models?"

"Did they get married, Professor Bookman?" a girl in the back row asks.

Lavi looks up at the faces before him, all pale, eager, full of life, and thinks of those who came before. His voice is subdued when he speaks. "No, they didn't. They were trapped, and they had to die to be together."

"That sounds dramatic," a student says, "a bit like Romeo and Juliet."

"Yes, it was a tragicomedy," Lavi agrees, discreetly wiping away a tear. "But they were happy while their romance lasted, and we can only hope that they found paradise in the world that lies after this one."

"Did you know them, sir?"

"Why does this sound like an interview?" Lavi smiles wryly. "Yes, I knew them. We were friends. For a time I wondered if I was the one who planted the idea of suicide into their minds. They died together, you know. The police found their crushed bodies along a railway track, their hands still entwined. Even in death, they held each other to their bosoms."

A girl sobs somewhere.

Lavi looks up and smiles. It's a watery smile, but he hasn't felt this free in ages. "I just want you guys to know that suicide isn't the way out. It's beautiful sometimes, to the romantic mind, to die together with the one you love. But life is more precious than that. I want you all to walk away today with this knowledge, that no matter what, suicide should never be an option."

He looks back toward the screen. "I only wish they'd known that."

-_finis_-

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><p>AN: Now this didn't come out the way I wanted it to. Idk, what do you guys think? This was inspired by three _really_ awesome films (Mona Lisa Smile, Inception and Jeux d'enfants) as well as by La Belle Dame Sans Merci. I wanted to convey Lavi's feeling of guilt and helplessness – and then later his realisation that his suggestion of suicide might not have led to his friends' fall. And in the end I wanted Lavi to finally wed Lenalee once he'd gotten rid of his guilt but there was just no elegant way to insert that in, imo. Oh well. I'll save that for another fic.

Any suggestions/criticisms/reviews would be appreciated (:


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